HPC4EnergyInnovation Program: Collaborations for U.S. Manufacturers

The High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) Program seeks qualified industry partners to participate in short-term, collaborative projects with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratories. HPC4EI is the umbrella initiative for the HPC4Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) and HPC4Materials (HPC4Mtls) programs. This solicitation is sponsored by the HPC4Manufacturing Program. Through support from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) the selected industry partners will be granted access to high performance computing (HPC) facilities and world-class scientists at DOE’s National Laboratories.The Department of Energy’s HPC4Mfg Program is interested in establishing collaborations that address key energy-related challenges for domestic manufacturers. By applying advanced modeling, simulation, and data analysis, these projects will improve energy efficiency, increase productivity, reduce cycle time, enable

next-generation technologies, investigate intensified processes, lower energy cost, and accelerate innovation.Eligibility for the HPC4Mfg Program is limited to entities that manufacture in the United States for commercial applications and the organizations that support them. Applicants are highly encouraged to partner with universities and non-profit organizations located within federally-designated Opportunity Zones and/or Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Additionally, the proposed project must be executed in the United States. Selected demonstration projects will be awarded up to $300,000 to support compute cycles and work performed by the National Laboratory partners. The industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the total project funding for the project. The industry contribution must come from non-federal funding sources.In addition, follow-on projects to previously awarded, successful demonstration projects in these areas will be considered. These projects should focus on the further implementation of the demonstrated HPC application in the industrial setting - taking it closer to operational use and broad national impact. Selected follow-on projects will be awarded up to $300,000 to support computing cycles and work performed by the National Laboratory, university and non-profit partners. The industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 33.3% of the total project funding; of this, at least half must be in cash to support the National Laboratory work.BackgroundDOE maintains world-class HPC expertise and facilities, currently hosting several of the top 20 most powerful computers in the world as ranked by TOP500 in June 2020. From detailed subatomic-level simulations to massive cosmological studies, researchers use HPC to probe science and technology questions inaccessible by experimental methods. Scientific insights gained from these computational studies have drastically impacted research and technology across industrial sectors and scientific fields. Examples include additive manufacturing, aerospace, oil recovery, drug development, climate science, genomics, and exploration of fundamental particles that make up our universe. From industry to academia, the scientific need for advanced computing continues to drive innovation and development for future high performance computers and their capabilities.There is high potential for U.S. industry to utilize the power of HPC. The HPC4EI Program is intended to provide HPC expertise and resources to industry to lower the risk of HPC adoption and broaden its use to support transformational and early-stage technology development. The HPC4EI Program hopes to provide this HPC expertise by supporting targeted collaborations between industry and DOE’s National Laboratories.Successful applicants will work collaboratively with staff from one or more of the DOE National Laboratories to conduct project activities across the various HPC areas of expertise, including development and optimization of modeling and simulation codes, porting and scaling of applications, application of data analytics, as well as applied research and development of tools or methods.To make the broadest impact across the industry, the project teams are expected to present their results at workshops associated with the program and at regional and national conferences. Publications are also encouraged.HPC4MfgDOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is the primary sponsor of the HPC4Mfg Program. The Office of Fossil Energy and EERE’s other Technology Offices may also sponsor select projects in this portfolio. AMO partners with private and public stakeholders to support the research, development, and deployment of innovative technologies that can improve U.S. competitiveness, save energy, and ensure global leadership in advanced manufacturing. AMO supports cost-shared research, development, and demonstration activities in support of crosscutting next-generation technologies and processes that hold high potential to significantly improve energy efficiency and reduce energy-related emissions, industrial waste, and the life‐cycle energy consumption of manufactured products.Improved energy efficiency across the manufacturing industry is one of the primary goals of the HPC4Mfg Program. The program solicits proposals that require HPC modeling and simulation to overcome impactful manufacturing process challenges resulting in reduced energy consumption and/or increased productivity. Proposals should provide a realistic assessment of the energy impact, the improvement in U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, and the increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs that a successful outcome of the project could have across the industrial sector.There is high potential for U.S. industry to utilize the power of HPC. The HPC4EI Program is intended to provide HPC expertise and resources to industry to lower the risk of HPC adoption and broaden its use to support transformational and early-stage technology development. The HPC4EI Program hopes to provide this HPC expertise by supporting targeted collaborations between industry and DOE’s National Laboratories.Successful applicants will work collaboratively with staff from one or more of the DOE National Laboratories to conduct project activities across the various HPC areas of expertise, including development and optimization of modeling and simulation codes, porting and scaling of applications, application of data analytics, as well as applied research and development of tools or methods.To make the broadest impact across the industry, the project teams are expected to present their results at workshops associated with the program and at regional and national conferences. Publications are also encouraged.HPC4MfgDOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is the primary sponsor of the HPC4Mfg Program. The Office of Fossil Energy and EERE’s other Technology Offices may also sponsor select projects in this portfolio. AMO partners with private and public stakeholders to support the research, development, and deployment of innovative technologies that can improve U.S. competitiveness, save energy, and ensure global leadership in advanced manufacturing. AMO supports cost-shared research, development, and demonstration activities in support of crosscutting next-generation technologies and processes that hold high potential to significantly improve energy efficiency and reduce energy-related emissions, industrial waste, and the life‐cycle energy consumption of manufactured products.Improved energy efficiency across the manufacturing industry is one of the primary goals of the HPC4Mfg Program. The program solicits proposals that require HPC modeling and simulation to overcome impactful manufacturing process challenges resulting in reduced energy consumption and/or increased productivity. Proposals should provide a realistic assessment of the energy impact, the improvement in U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, and the increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs that a successful outcome of the project could have across the industrial sector.Of particular interest to AMO are:Improvements in manufacturing processes which result in significant national energy savings. Examples include:Process improvements in high-energy consuming industries such as paper and pulp, primary metal manufacturing, water and wastewater, glass and chemical industries;Improvements in material performance in harsh service environments such as very high temperature or highly corrosive processes;Integration of advanced object recognition and other machine learning algorithms (e.g. sortation, defect detection) into high throughput industrial processes;Improvements in modeling prediction and closed-loop control for smart manufacturing systems (e.g. advanced sensors and process controls);Improvements in separation and processing for critical materials (e.g. rare earth elements); andElectrification of processes.Improvements in the lifecycle energy consumption of products of interest to AMO.Examples include:Improved materials and shape optimization for light-weighting in transport technologies;Semiconductor electrical efficiency; andIncreased recycling of waste associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing or enable reuse at end-of-life.Efficiency improvements in energy conversion and storage technologies.Examples include:Improvements in combined heat and power units which save significant energy and/or increase operational and fuel flexibility;Novel energy storage and energy conversion techniques; andImprovements in waste heat recovery.EligibilityEligibility is limited to U.S. manufacturers, defined as entities that are incorporated (or otherwise formed) under the laws of a particular state or territory of the United States, and that manufacture products in the United States or that manufacture, distribute, or otherwise deploy software and hardware systems as described above or that develop and/or manufacture new or modified materials in the United States. Project work must be executed in the United States.U.S. universities, institutes, and other non-profit organizations are also eligible to participate as collaborators. Applicants are highly encouraged to partner with universities and non-profit organizations located within federally-designated Opportunity Zones and/or Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Funding for university and/or non-profit participants may be provided by the National Laboratory or the industrial partner. Funding provided to a university and/or non-profit by the industrial partner can be considered a component of the industrial partner’s in-kind funding contribution.An entity may only submit one Concept Paper and one Full Application to the HPC4Mfg Program. If an entity submits more than one Concept Paper the review committee will select no more than one proposal from this entity to advance to the Full Proposal (Full Application) stage. This limitation does not prohibit an applicant from collaborating on other applications (e.g., as a potential subrecipient or partner) so long as the entity is only listed as the applicant on one Concept Paper and one Full Application for this solicitation. In organizations with more than 5000 employees, an “entity” can be considered to be a major business unit within the company, for example, an Aerospace Division as distinct from a Central Research Division.Funding RequirementsThe DOE monetary contribution for each project will not exceed $300,000. For demonstration projects, an industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the total project funding to support industry expertise to the project. The participant contribution can take the form of monetary funds in or “in-kind” contributions and must come from non-federal sources unless otherwise allowed by law. For follow-on projects defined as a project that is using the results of a previously funded project within the HPC4EI portfolio, the industry contribution is 33.3% of the total project funding of which at least half of this amount is a cash contribution. Sample budgets are shown below. Total project size cannot exceed $500,000. DOE funding will be provided to the National Laboratory (or laboratories) in support of their work under the HPC4EI Program.SEE THE ATTACHED DOCCUMENT FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE FOLLOWING:Sample BudgetsSolicitation Process and TimelineConcept Paper GuidlinesFull Proposal GuidelinesEvaluation Process and CriteriaIntellectual Property and Proprietary DataNote: THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT REQUEST.